WHEN I GOT home, a piece of paper was lying on the doormat. “Where are you, what are you doing and why aren’t you answering my calls? RING ME NOW! Gwenxxxx.”

I pushed the message out of my way, took the new phone out of its box and plugged it in to charge. Then I opened my Hotmail account and copied out the new email address. “This is my phone number,” I wrote, and keyed it in. I took a deep breath and pressed send. There, it was gone. Now all I had to do was wait.

I couldn’t put off listening to my phone messages any longer: Gwen, Joe, Gwen, Gwen, my bank manager, Joe, Mary, my mother twice, Mary again, Gwen and Gwen and Gwen, my sister, Fergus twice, a woman calling about a chest of drawers that needed stripping, my bank manager again, a wrong number, Gwen, who sounded frantic with anxiety now. I felt a pinch of guilt. I would call her soon. Tomorrow. After I’d sorted this latest thing out. I couldn’t talk to anybody until then. It wasn’t possible.

But even as I was thinking this there was an insistent knocking at the door. I got up to answer it, then sat down again. No: it would be Gwen or Mary or Joe or Fergus and I wasn’t in the mood. If I didn’t open the door, they’d go away. The knocking continued. Did they know somehow I was in there? Then it stopped.

I breathed out with relief and stood up. What now? I opened the fridge door and stared dispiritedly into the white space. A lonely knob of hard cheese, a past-its-sell-by-date packet of butter and a shrink-wrapped stub of chorizo sat on the otherwise empty shelves. As I stood there, I had a creepy feeling that I wasn’t alone. I heard a rustle behind me, coming from the garden and, very slowly, I turned. Someone was staring in at me through the window. Gwen. Her sweet-natured face was transformed by a huge scowl. Another face appeared beside her and the two glared in at me. Then Mary raised her fist and rapped sharply on the glass. “Let us in!” she yelled.

I opened the back door and stood aside so that they could enter.

“What are you playing at?” hissed Gwen, dumping a large shopping bag on the table.

“What are you wearing?” said Mary.

“Didn’t you get my messages? My note? Do you know how worried we’ve all been?”

“I—I was busy,” I mumbled.